


Take It On The Run

by Storyshark2005



Series: (No) Mercy for the Midlife Crisis Universe [5]
Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Brace yourselves, Cars, Cocaine, Dutch POV, Dutch is not PC, F/M, Grand theft auto, M/M, Street Racing, but not really..., don't be a pussy, everybody hates going to the DMV, gratuitous smoking, karate boyfriends, lawrusso, lawrusso outsider perspective, let's play "find the Amoush", motorhead!Dutch, sort of "No Mercy" spoilers, that's what "GTA" means for all you straights, too much cocaine, you'll be fine it won't ruin anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-25 23:54:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21364750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storyshark2005/pseuds/Storyshark2005
Summary: Dutch gets out of jail, and the world isn't exactly how he left it.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Ali Mills, Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Dutch/Ali Mills, Johnny Lawrence/Ali Mills
Series: (No) Mercy for the Midlife Crisis Universe [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609726
Comments: 34
Kudos: 190





	Take It On The Run

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the same universe as "(No) Mercy for the Midlife Crisis", sometime in early 2020ish
> 
> Thank you so much to Gia467 for reading this draft early, giving me your thoughts and comments and your time. Gia is responsible for one of Daniel's lines of dialogue. If you ask I'll tell you which one. It's a sports ball metaphor... ;) 
> 
> (Also, the gorgeous banner below is the work of Gia467! She's incredible!!) 
> 
> Enjoy.

> So he got on the gas, first, second, and third...that ride struck something in me that would just...I mean the smell, the scream of that 5L flat 12 motor...burns something in your heart and soul forever.
> 
> _ \- Chad McQueen, Bighorn Podcast Ep. 6 _

> I don't scare easy
> 
> Don't fall apart when I'm under the gun
> 
> You can break my heart and I ain't gonna run
> 
> I don't scare easy for no one
> 
> _ \- “Scare Easy”, Mudcrutch _

  
  


***

Dutch’s father built things, and Dutch took them apart. 

_ “You’re destroying this family_,” his mother had said. He was nineteen and the Mustang was wrapped around a tree, Dutch was staggering out onto the asphalt, and his mother was screaming at him. That was when the front end burst into hot orange flames and really, only Dutch understood what this was doing to his father. He laughed like a wild coyote at the high moon over the smooth green lawns of Mulholland Drive and his mother cried and hung onto his father’s slumped shoulders. 

He hasn’t talked to his parents in twenty years. 

So he drives the cars down from San Diego, maybe stolen during a Padre’s game at Petco Park, and it was thirty minutes down to the border at San Ysidro. Going South was a whole lot quicker than going North, and in three hours when the game was wrapped up and Joe Schmo figured out he couldn’t find his ride- not because he was drunk or lost, but _ because it wasn’t there _\- well Dutch would already be three sheets down the beach with a coed in his lap at the Bar Bombay in Rosarito. Mexico embraced Dutch like a long lost mother, and he burrowed down in the bosom of her white sand beaches like a foal to its mother. Sun and sweat, tequila salt and lime. And cocaine. Oh, a whole lot of cocaine.

The _Federales _didn’t care much about US law or GTA, but the California Highway Patrol did, and by 2005 had finally lowered their standards to GPS tracking and bait cars. Pussies. Now, ordinarily, Dutch could spot that little black box wired in under the dash faster than he could take out the security alarm. And they were getting smaller, those little black boxes, but that wasn’t the problem this time. The problem was those mouth breathers at the CHP had gotten smarter and hidden a _second_ tracker in a magnetic box in the undercarriage.

And it was stupid, too. Marco had told him to get a truck, a Tacoma or a Frontier but a Mustang sitting in the backlot behind a Best Buy... probably owned by some jumped-up dumb teenage employee, this dark green dream machine glinting under the security lights, courtesy of Doctor Daddy, no doubt. Dutch saw it, he wanted it, and he took it. 

Fifteen years in the pen for ego and an oversight. 

His first couple years had been rough, in and out of the shoe, he earned a reputation for starting fights, and for ending them, too, which got him transferred to supermax at ADX, a hellish eighteen months in Colorado before Jimmy had managed to work his magic and get him downgraded and back to Lompoc. “You pull this shit again,” Jimmy had put a finger in his face, eyes red and Tommy looking pale like death sitting right beside him, “and you don’t get a second chance, Dutch.” 

Jimmy looks better, now. He’s smiling. Dutch tries to ignore the odd site of the three men in front of him. Three, when it should have been four. 

“Two more weeks, buddy,” he reaches across the table and claps Dutch on the shoulder, squeezing his arm briefly and earning a dirty look from a nearby guard. “You’re almost home free!” 

Dutch didn’t have a home, of course. He looks over at Johnny, chin tucked down near his chest. Bobby had his hands folded on the table next to him, but was sort of leaned into Johnny’s shoulder, always the protector. 

Dutch clears his throat, the plastic table cool under his rough fingertips. “We, uh. We still cool, Johnny?” 

Johnny looks up, bluebird eyes. His mouth drops open, a little hesitant, and Dutch knows the plan is FUBAR. 

They’d met at school, but it was Cobra Kai that brought them, bonded them, forged them together in five-pointed star. And of the four of them, his Cobra brothers, the roughest running water was always between him and Johnny, two alpha dogs in the pack. 

Johnny and Bobby had known each other the longest, an untouchable and unfathomable bond that Dutch found bizarre and unsettling, but one that Jimmy and Tommy never seemed to question or give a second glance. And it was easy to see why- Johnny was dazzling. He was the star, Kreese’s favorite far and away. Dutch could give him a run for his money, fueled by an angry fire, but Johnny was _ perfect_. 

Anyway so Dutch played third fiddle to Johnny and Bobby until a couple of months later when Tommy arrived with fresh-faced Jimmy in tow. Tommy, scrappy, and a natural spotter of brilliance and power, immediately pegged Johnny and Bobby as the group to be in, and Jimmy. Well, Jimmy was just happy to be there, making instant friends. 

Dutch, who’d kept his distance in class, was finally lured in by Tommy’s encouraging smile and a freshly rolled joint between Johnny’s fingertips. 

“_Jesus,”_ he’d wheezed, the five of them huddled in the back alley behind the dojo, “this tastes like _ shit_, this is ditch weed, man, where’d you get this?” Johnny’s cheeks had flared red and Dutch crushed the sad, half-burned joint under the toe of his sneaker. 

“Listen, I know a guy, meet me here tomorrow after class. If you wanna see what the real deal is like.” He’d turned, popped his collar, and taken off on his dirt bike. His first one-up on Johnny Lawrence, a full month before Johnny would show up to school on his nicer, newer 650-liter Honda. Rich prick. 

Don’t get him wrong, he loved Johnny like a brother. A mutual love of karate and cars (and it was sort of nice, that if Johnny was better at karate, at least Dutch could be the more fanatical motorhead) drew them warily closer, and even when Johnny moved in on Ali Mills first, Dutch hadn’t really minded. Mouthy girls were okay for a few dates, but the novelty wore off quick. And you could see how that one turned out. 

Anyway. So here they were, one Cobra down but Dutch was on his way out barring disaster, and here Johnny was about to spring some kinda news on him. Dutch groans, wipes his hands down his face at Johnny’s reluctant expression. 

“_Fuck_, Johnny, are you kidding me-” 

“No, no man, it’s fine-” he’s trying, eyebrows up in appeal, hands out. 

“Cause I don’t have anywhere else, these chuckleheads have _ wives,_ and kids and shit,” he points a thumb towards Jimmy, wordlessly including Bobby. 

“Dutch, man, it’s fine, you can stay-” 

“But lemme guess, you’re with somebody.” 

A little pause, Johnny’s eyes angle to one side. “Yes.” 

“Okay, and she’s not real thrilled about me movin’ in.” Dutch crosses his arms. The guard across the way (Dutch liked to call him ‘Shitface’ in his head) is giving him the stink eye again but fuck him, he’s got twenty minutes left. 

“No, it’s- I mean, sort of.” Bobby puts a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, nodding encouragingly.

“Just tell him, Johnny-” 

Ok. Now he’s freaking out a little. “Tell me _ what-_” Dutch looks between the three of them. Jimmy’s paying closer attention to his fingernails. 

“QUIET over there-” Shitface takes a step closer to their table, and Jimmy quickly springs up, all smiles and calming hands. Dutch gives the guy a glare but turns back to Johnny and Bobby. 

“The-” Johnny sighs, expression drawn. “The person I’m seeing. Dating. It’s...someone you know. From high school.” 

Dutch frowns, wheels turning. “It’s not- _ oh Jesus,_ Johnny, don’t tell me it’s Ali-” 

“NO, no, it’s not Ali.” 

“Well who in the hell- ” 

“It’s a _ guy- _ ” Johnny looks like he nearly vomits the words up, quickly lowering his voice. “_I’m dating a guy._” He’s looking at the table now, forehead tilted down onto his fingers. 

Dutch’s mind goes briefly blank. 

“So....” looks from Johnny, then to Bobby’s sympathetic expression. “So you’re a....you’re a faggot.” 

Johnny’s forehead nearly hits the table, Jimmy’s face crumples and Bobby’s eyebrows dip downward, stern. 

“_C’mon, _ Dutch- _ ” _

“Don’t be such a dick-” 

“Not like it’s a _ bad _ thing-” Dutch corrects, chuckling. “I mean, so you like to fuck guys, whatever-” 

“Take it easy, Dutch,” Jimmy clucks. 

“_What?_ Jesus, I mean the guy is straight bangin’ every chick in the Valley since middle school-” 

Johnny’s face is completely hidden in his hands, he’s making some kind of groaning sound, and Bobby is rubbing his back in soothing stripes, and things begin to make sense. 

“Oh,” Dutch straightens. “Oh, what- _ Bobby?!” _his face completes the thought.

Bobby’s hand pulls from Johnny’s shoulder like fire and Johnny’s head shoots up. 

“_No_! No, it’s-” 

Jimmy’s laughing at all of them, now, and Dutch is tempted to join him, but Bobby and Johnny look pretty fuckin’ pissed off. And then, right before the name leaves Johnny’s lips it all snaps into place, Dutch’s mind flies back thirty years to a caramel skinned, doe-eyed teenager, 90% legs and 110% attitude, that yappy mouthed terrier who Johnny wouldn’t ever, _ ever _ shut up about, the whole fuckin’ year nearly ruined for Dutch because Johnny couldn’t decide if he was more worked up over losing Ali or the scrawny girly-boy who stole her away. 

“LaRusso,” Dutch whispers, locking wide eyes with Johnny as he finally mouths the same name. 

“How’d you-” 

“Holy shit.” Dutch feels his mouth turn up into a smile, the slow spread of glee, of revelation. It was the most shocking and least surprising- and the _ funniest _ shit he’d maybe ever, _ ever _ heard in his whole goddamned delinquent life. 

“This explains so much,” Dutch grins, delighted. “You had a _ complex _ about him.” 

“You are _ such _ an asshole,” Johnny groans.

“Holy _ shit,_” he repeats, a chuckle bubbling up in his chest, “Ooohho_hohohohoho, LARUSSO?!” _ He stands, yelling, and whoops into the drop-tile ceiling, and the Shitfaced guard strides over and grabs Dutch by the arm and tugs him towards the door as his three friends hiss and plead with him to _ be quiet! Keep it down! _

But Dutch is gone, man, he’s howling to the moon like a wolf, and he feels his spine stretch backward, up to the blue California sky somewhere, a handful of feet and two weeks away, and he _ howls! _

Because, man oh man. What a world. 

***

It turns out, Johnny is living his big gay fantasy life with LaRusso in a cartoonishly japo-karate-paper house. It has paper sliding doors, bamboo wind chimes, and a _koi pond_. LaRusso corrects him on this last point after Dutch comments on his ‘goldfish’. 

Johnny explains how they’ve fixed it up, how the main house is pretty much normal, it’s just the dojo area that has the paper doors and tatami mats. Only it just so happens there isn’t a guest room (_ yet _\- Johnny points out the new addition, a half-constructed room and loft for Robby, who’s staying at LaRusso’s cavernous old house in the Hills), so that Dutch gets to stay in the paper door room. Drafty at all times of day, loud....and just really fuckin’ weird. LaRusso tells him he can’t take down the creepy pictures of old japo dudes so he has to stare at them at night on a queen sized bed. Which was more than he was expecting, half guessing he’d be slipping into a sleeping bag on an air mattress every night. 

Johnny seems to at least share his skepticism for the living situation, rolling his eyes companionably as they sit out on the back deck drinking beer. Dutch’s first beer in fifteen years, Johnny had offered him a Banquet but LaRusso had some fancy wheat beer that tasted like _ gold_. And despite the comic nature of it all, Dutch sinks into the sublime tranquility of his first evening outside the pen. The California sun sinking behind the trees, a soft breeze brushing over his freshly shaved cheeks (Johnny had taken him to a barber for a hot towel cut and shave, bless him, and Jimmy took a bunch of pictures with his flashy little computer phone). He can smell something really good coming from the kitchen. 

“So he cooks?” Dutch leans back in the folding camp chair, stretching his toes out, new boots tossed to the side. 

Johnny squints one eye shut against the sun, looking back over his shoulder to the house. 

“Yeah,” he nods, taking a drink, and sort of sinks back down into his chair, looking fondly down at his beer. “He’s like...really good.” 

For as much shit as he’s given Johnny already, this is his brother, and he has opened his home to Dutch freely, opened up his life to him. And Dutch may have been a rough, crude, hot-headed ex-convict, a thief, a junkie, and an occasional liar- but he’s not a complete asshole. Not all the time, anyway.

He clears his throat, and takes another swig of the fancy wheat beer. LaRusso had even slipped a little slice of lemon into it. 

“Sounds like a good deal, Johnny,” he nods, squinting into the sun. “Looks like one, too. It’s pretty here.” 

Johnny looks over at him, knocks him in the shoulder with his free hand. “Better than the inside of a cell, huh?”

Dutch nods, closes his eyes and tips his head up to the sinking sun. He can still feel a little warmth in the cooling air, and his ears pick out the swaying trees and the birdsong, and maybe the occasional splash of one of those koi fish in the pond. 

“Yeah. It’s better.” 

  
  


***

  
  


Coke is big in Mexico, but heroin and fentanyl are the real hits these days, even as far back as 2003, when he’d gotten arrested. He’d tried it once, main line like a slow black tar in his veins, he’d laid back on warm air, feeling a slow ecstasy lick it’s way over every nerve in his body, like someone was laying layer after layer of warm blankets over his skin. 

It was nice. He could see how people threw away their whole lives for this stuff, let their friends and family and their jobs and all their money and their homes, everything- let it all peel away like old skin from a rotting onion. How they could just lay back and let it all fall away around them. Who could give a shit, feeling like that. 

But Dutch didn’t like to go slow, he liked to go fast. He _ loved _ cocaine. Loved it more than anything else in his life, maybe with the exception of his brother and cars. He loved the smell of it like gasoline filling his nostrils before he poured it out of the little bag and laid it out in orderly white lines. He loved the fine powder hitting the back of his throat, getting that drip, and the numbness crawling over his throat, the back of his tongue, his whole nose just gone into ether. The hot wash of it over his brain, feeling like he was waking up after sleeping all goddamn day. It felt like driving 120 miles an hour down an open highway, freshly poured asphalt, just miles and miles of total, complete freedom. 

He doesn’t know how people live their whole lives not feeling like that. How do you go on living, driving on fumes, an empty tank calling to be filled up? How could you _ live like that _? 

What the fuck _ was the point of it _? 

  
  


***

There are still a few hoops he has to jump through. 

He has to call his PO that first night, and the deal is a weekly meeting where Dutch has to get himself to the probation office once a week, on time, he has to pee in a cup and a bunch of other bullshit that Jimmy sits down to discuss with him at the kitchen table at LaRusso’s house. There’s a binder, and Jimmy points stuff out with underlines and a highlighter. Dutch gets overwhelmed pretty damn quick and lights a cigarette which he knows would piss LaRusso off, but LaRusso isn’t home at the moment so...cheers. 

“It’s supposed to be confusing,” Jimmy sighs, sitting back in his chair. “They want you to screw up, which is ridiculous because all they talk about is how overcrowded and underfunded the prison system is.” 

“I’m not going back, Jimmy.” Dutch points his cigarette at him, his fingers only shake a little. “I’m done with it. I’ll put a fuckin’ bullet in my head first, man.” 

“I know you’re not going back.” Jimmy grimaces, looking back down at the binder. “I just wish the system wasn’t so messed up.” 

“Well. I got a damn good lawyer to help me out, don’t I? Went to that fancy lawyer college up at Stanford and everything.” Dutch quirks his eyebrows at Jimmy, who laughs his sweet laugh and kicks at him under the table. 

Just then a key jangles in a lock outside and LaRusso shuffles in with a few bags of groceries. Johnny sidles in from somewhere in the back, jeans and a flannel shirt and no shoes on and they mutter something low between them, Johnny grabbing a couple of the bags. Dutch knows they’ve been holding out on the PDA, either for his benefit or their own- but he does catch the occasional brush of a hand down a back, a shoulder squeeze, a lot of low murmuring and quiet laughter, and sort of a subdued, sparkly way of looking at each other. It’s a pretty gay way to put things but...well. There you go. 

Dutch gets up, pushing his chair back, and keeps his cigarette between his lips. 

“You got more out there?” he asks, LaRusso busy shoving green stuff in the fridge. 

“Oh, it’s fine, Johnny’s got it.” 

“Idiot doesn’t have any shoes on,” Dutch grumbles, and starts out to the car. “I got it.” He levels Johnny with a look and beats him to the door.

“Say hi to your boyfriend, why don’t you?” He takes his cigarette out of his mouth, puffing the smoke out the front door. “JIMMY, give ‘em some space, would ya? It’s like a fuckin’ circus in here-” 

LaRusso protests but Jimmy follows Dutch out to the car, wiggling his eyebrows on his way out. Dutch bends into the car and loads Jimmy’s arms up with bags. 

“You’re gettin’ soft,” Jimmy says, smiling. 

Dutch throws his cigarette down, grabs the rest of the bags, and kicks the car door shut. 

  
  


***

His mother told Dutch that when he was born, the doctor came around holding the baby and said to her, _Congratulations, ma’am, you’ve a big blonde Dutchman_. Eight-and-a-half-pounds and a head of matted blonde curls, his father’s friends gathered around, crowing _How is the Dutchman_? _Let me see the little Dutch boy, _lifting him in the air with their hands as big as the span of his baby chest- _Look, the flying Dutchman!_

She also told him she knew he would be trouble. _ I still blame myself_, _ your father was between jobs, we were moving across the country and I was stressing myself silly. I had terrible headaches, back aches, I wasn’t sleeping, so I took some pills to help me rest. I wish I hadn’t, you know these days it’s different. They didn’t tell us back then, about what you shouldn’t do. _

He’s been angry as long as he can remember. Karate was a useful channel, and then coke lit something in his blood to burn it off, temporary relief. And cars, boy. There wasn’t anything like the high after slipping down into a leather seat that wasn’t your own, slamming a screwdriver into the ignition and taking off down an unfurling roll of pavement, windows down and the wind combing your hair back. 

When he couldn’t steal cars he liked to fight. He liked to start them. Get in someone’s face, maybe somebody bigger than him, piss him off and rile him up and feel the smack of knuckle on bone, it didn’t matter much if it was him taking the hit or giving it, just the visceral thrill of being in the fight, in the fray. It felt real. It felt like breathing.

Driving, fighting...being in motion. That was life. Anything that happened before or after was just waiting. 

  
  


***

  
  


He can’t sleep. 

He sinks down into the mattress and stares up at the weird japo pictures on the wall. LaRusso was all worried the paper walls would be too loud, let in all the traffic noise. But the place is pretty well off the main drag and the problem becomes quite the opposite. It’s too dark and too quiet. Inside, there was a constant dynne, even at night prisoners shouted and the guards yelled and pounded on the cell doors and it was never quiet. He could hear his thoughts out here, it was so quiet. 

At first he just laid there, under the covers in the weird room until he remembered that he could actually get up and _ go_. The first night he just sat outside and smoked for a couple hours and watched the moon. 

It’s 5 in the morning, he’s on the couch watching _ In the Heat of the Night _ nearly on mute. He’s been clean for 15 years but he’s starting to feel that itch again, that low blood burn that makes him chew his nails to the quick and bounce his knee and the nicotine really only takes the edge off. 

LaRusso is also an early riser (not like Johnny, who always slept like the dead, you had to shake him back to life, thirty years later he’s still just an overgrown teenager), and he pads into the kitchen in running shorts, hoodie, and socks. 

So far, the situation has been weird. Not painfully so, but LaRusso seems to be keeping a polite distance, and Dutch knows he’s already exhausted with having a permanent guest, tiptoeing around like he’s afraid of Dutch, or just supremely uncomfortable with having a convict in the next room putting his feet up on the coffee table. Dutch isn’t thrilled either, he feels heavy and ungainly in this place with its delicate little trees and straight, thin walls. Like a bull in a china shop, big and gruff and out of place. LaRusso though, slight and dark-eyed and soft-spoken and easy, pouring hot water into a steaming mug. He looks like the place was made for him. 

The living room is a cobbled together representation of the two of them. Dutch recognizes Johnny’s old couch underneath him, he’s not sure about the flat screen TV. There’s a photo of Johnny and Laura from graduation on a bookshelf, and another one of the five Cobras (_ May 1983 _, his mind instantly provides, the five of them standing around in the parking lot outside the high school, Johnny’s Avanti in the background, he thinks Suse probably took that picture, she was either dating him or Tommy at the time, he’s not sure which. He smiles a little at the memory, something aching deep in his chest). There’s a stack of 80s hair metal CDs by the stereo, obviously Johnny’s. And a stack of car magazines that could be Johnny’s or Daniel’s- but the rest is all LaRusso, potted plants, a signed Mets ‘86 World Series ball, a vinyl collection (a lot of Bruce Springsteen, but also enough Billy Joel and Fleetwood Mac to make Dutch chuckle in sympathy), a bunch of photos of LaRusso’s family, and a couple of LaRusso and his old sensei. 

The largest picture, on the wall adjacent to the TV, is framed under glass. It looks like a karate dojo, probably the new one Johnny and Daniel were running together. Dutch stands to peer closer, switching off the TV, letting the room start to fill with natural morning sunlight. It’s a group photo, everybody leaning into the camera to smile, happy and a little sweaty. Johnny and Daniel in the middle- Johnny in black and Daniel in white- and _ jesus _ that must be Robby under Johnny’s arm- and LaRusso’s daughter under his. A Mexican looking kid on one knee in front of them, his arm around a bigger black girl, and a shorter kid that kind of looked like LaRusso, probably his son. 

“Bobby took that. Just a few months ago.” 

Dutch jumps a little, LaRusso’s voice is canted low, but close. Daniel holds out a steaming mug, so he takes it, craning down to look. 

“That doesn’t look like coffee.” 

“Tea. I’m trying to cut back on the caffeine.” 

“Right,” Dutch nods, clearing his throat. “You, uh. Goin’ on a run?” 

Daniel nods, sipping his tea. “Yeah.” 

Dutch tries to drink some, and he nearly has to spit it out, it’s so hot. 

“Still kinda hot-” 

“Yeah,” Dutch coughs. “How far do you go?” 

“Just a couple miles. My knee starts to act up after two or three.”

There’s a bit of a weighty silence, but LaRusso doesn’t add anything, just stands there quietly drinking his tea. Dutch just holds his scalding hot mug, sort of enjoying the burning sensation in his skin. Prison only had cheap plastic cups, and the coffee was never more than lukewarm. 

Dutch looks at the TV, flat and quiet, then back to LaRusso.  
  
“Mind if I go with?” 

He’s a little thrown, but does a good job not showing it, only raising his eyebrows a little. “Uh, yeah, sure. You got some shoes?” 

Dutch shrugs, looking down at his jeans and boots. 

“What size?” 

Dutch tells him, and LaRusso laughs, good naturedly. “We’re the same size. I’ll grab you a pair, hold on.” 

Dutch waves off the offer of a pair of Johnny’s shorts, and so they go, LaRusso springing along like a deer, Dutch huffing along beside him with his sticky lungs and worn out heart. It’s January, maybe 50 degrees. Cold for Los Angeles, but finds it a little bit stupidly thrilling, walking up to the tall wooden fence and then right through it. Prison gave open doors a bit of a novel appeal. 

It definitely wears off though, and Dutch is pretty sure LaRusso is sandbagging, but he ignores Dutch’s waving hands to keep going, and slows to a walk with him as they crest the top of a steep hill looking out over Receda, the Santa Monica Mountains peaking up to the south, the green and brown landscape pinched and wrinkled like damp paper. 

Dutch finds a boulder of granite that looks suitable and drops down like a sack of potatoes. He pulls his pack of cigarettes from his jeans, and lights one up.

Dutch offers him one. LaRusso, predictably, scoffs. 

“No thanks.” 

“Hey, man. It’s not like I’m takin’ a bump.” 

Daniel’s face crinkles up comically. “What, like _ cocaine_?” 

“Yeah. I like blow.” 

LaRusso's eyes get big. He seems a little overwhelmed. 

“I don’t do it anymore. I’m in-” Dutch makes quotation marks with his fingers, “_ Recovery.” _He shakes his head. “Crock of shit. Once an addict, you know.” He cups his hands around the lighter and cigarette, and snaps the lighter shut. 

“So,” Dutch breathes out, closing his eyes at the warm wash of nicotine. “What’s up your ass? Besides the obvious.” 

“Oh, _ fuck _off.” 

He taps some ashes away. “Something’s got your panties in a knot, something you can’t tell your boyfriend about.” He tries not to say it like an ass. He really does. 

“Just sit down,” he continues. “Take advantage of the situation. We’re at the top of a mountain-” 

“Hill,” Larusso corrects, squinting into the sun, still breathing a little heavily, sweat beading along his forehead and dampening the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“Whatever. You don’t give a shit about me, we hardly know each other. You can get it off your chest. I won’t tell Johnny-boy.” 

“Right.” 

“Hey. You learn how to keep a secret in prison.” 

“Well this isn’t prison-” 

“No.” Dutch breathes out, looking out at the sunrise, the light hitting every piece of the Valley, large and overwhelming and sad somehow. “It isn’t.” 

LaRusso paces some more, hands on his hips. 

“It’s just...” In a totally non-gay way, Dutch sees what Johnny might see in the guy, tapping his foot in his little jogging shorts and hoody. He was kinda cute. If you were into that.

Dutch taps out more ashes. 

“It’s probably stupid.” He looks over at Dutch. Dutch shrugs, gesturing vaguely to continue. 

“He’s friends with Ali on Facebook,” he grimaces. “They’ve been _ messaging _,” he says, with a scoff. 

“Okay.” He doesn’t know what the fuck a face book is. Or what ‘messaging’ means, what, with fucking pidgeons? You never know. Dutch doesn’t recognize most of what the world’s become these days. 

“She’s coming to town next month. Something about her parents.” 

“So.” 

“So...I dunno, I’m just-” 

Dutch laughs. “So you think Johnny-boy’s gonna remember how much he loves pussy and dump you for his high school sweetheart. Leave this little gay karate paradise you guys’ve got goin’ on.” 

Daniel shakes his head. “I dunno why I’m talkin’ to you.” 

“Why not.” 

“You’re an asshole.” 

Dutch shrugs, takes another puff. “You shouldn’t worry about Ali.” 

“Why not?” 

Dutch shakes his head. “They weren’t good together. She made him miserable. And vise versa. If he doesn’t remember that, he’s a fuckin’ idiot and they deserve eachother.” 

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” LaRusso stares at him, forehead wrinkled down in disbelief. 

Dutch ignores him, lights another cigarette, tossing the last one in the gravel at his feet. “Shan was another one. She drained him, and he fuckin’ _ loved _ it- for _ years_. He likes to make himself miserable because he thinks he deserves it.”

“You know you’re some kinda friend-” 

Dutch clicks his lighter closed, shaking his head. “Except you.” He gestures, cigarette in hand. “He’s actually trying, with you.” 

“What do you mean?” Now he’s got his attention. 

“What?” Dutch puffs, slyly. “All those times staring daggers at you two across the hallway, cotton candy girl and cannoli boy- “ Dutch laughs. “You didn’t think he was lookin’ at Ali, did you?” 

Dutch keeps laughing, and Daniel stares. “You’re the one he couldn’t stop talkin’ about. He likes to pull pigtails.” 

“You mean shove me down a ravine on my bike-” 

“A hill, kid. It was a hill.” Dutch stands up, back and knees aching. “And I didn’t say he doesn’t like to pull rough.” 

It takes a few seconds before LaRusso unsticks his feet from the pavement, but he catches up to Dutch and points out the next turn.

  
  


***

There’s a detached 4-car garage in the front yard, the sealed cement floor looked like it had been poured within the last year or so, smooth and free of oil stains. A tool bench ran along the shorter north wall, orderly and neat. The wall above was fitted with pegboard, and held cascades of wrenches, hammers, different sized pliers. He opens one of the metal toolbox drawers to reveal the largest socket set he’s seen outside of a professional garage. An air compressor sat quietly in one corner, a coiled hose on a spool mounted to one side. The air was a heady mix of motor oil, rubber, and the faintest whiff of gasoline. 

Dutch wanders in after the early morning run, finds that Johnny was still dead to the world in the bedroom, didn’t have to go in till noon. LaRusso had begged off for a shower (there was only one in the whole place, at least until the addition was finished), throwing a towel over one shoulder, leaving Dutch to his own devices. 

He has ambitious plans to go over the resume he’d scratched out on lined yellow paper with Jimmy a few days ago, maybe try to commandeer Johnny’s laptop and type it up on a “word processor.” Prison had tried to school him in computers, and he’d had no taste for it. Now, however, he wishes he’d applied himself a little more. Apparently the outside world revolved around this shit nowadays. 

The garage is dim and quiet. Four gleaming classics sit, blinking awake as Dutch flips the overhead lights on. 

“Hey, girls,” he calls softly, skimming his fingers over the hood of the first one, a low-slung black Cadillac, probably ‘50 or ‘51. He recognizes the second, sweet canary yellow Ford convertible, remembers LaRusso driving it around Receda looking like a sixteen year-old geriatric. Truth be told, these weren’t really Dutch’s style. Nothing in this garage could hit 200hp. These were heavy, old cars. Parade cars meant to carry pretty girls down Main Street on the Fourth of July. But there was something to be said for all that gleaming chrome and glossy, pastel paint. They weren’t sexy, per se, but Dutch could still feel that slow, churning rumble in his chest he got around anything with a motor. 

He forgets himself after awhile in the chrome and metallic curves, doesn’t realize he left the door open until turns to see LaRusso leaning in, arms crossed, shoulder propped up against the doorway, just watching, freshly showered and dressed up in his car salesman suit. 

Dutch turns, running a thumb over a greasy spot on the bench. “Your tools?”

“Yeah. Johnny uses them, but.” He shrugs. “I don’t let him touch the Ford.” Dutch can read the defensive undertones, the implied _ and you don’t either_. 

Dutch nods, ignoring the salty tones and turns to the car. He shoves his hands in his pockets to appease LaRusso, and walks around to the driver’s side, leaning in over the door. “Beautiful car. Flathead V8, right?” 

“Yeah. 3-speed transmission.” Daniel uncrosses his hands, walks down to peer in over the passenger side. “3-on-the-tree.”

“Original engine?” 

“Right from the factory. Mr. Miyagi drove it down here from Detroit. Kept it under a tarp for almost 30 years. Amazing it didn’t have rust damage, but the low humidity down here.” 

Dutch nods. “Amazing we used to make things like this in this country. None of that shit now.” He peers around the steering column. “It’s got the old push button start. Funny those came back.” 

Daniel laughs, maybe a little surprised. “Yeah. That’s true.” 

Dutch continues to look, studying the tan leather interior, the matching yellow wheels, chrome hub caps, and white wall tires. Everything about this car was _ polished. _

“How does she run?”

LaRusso looks up, a grimace pulling sideways across his face. “Not great. I think the transmission’s shot. I’ve got everything I need for the rebuild in that kit over there.” Daniel nods to red and white cardboard box sitting on the tool bench. “I just...haven’t had the time, between the dealership and the divorce and the dojo.” 

“Good things come in D’s, is that the old saying?” Dutch wheezes. He needs to stop smoking.

Daniel rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “I guess so. Anyway, I gotta take off. You need me to pick anything up? I’ll be back around dinner, Johnny should be up soon.” 

Dutch shakes his head and watches LaRusso leave, drop down into his black Audi and Dutch cocks an ear toward the purring engine until the sound disappears down the road. 

He wipes a hand, long and slow down the smooth, oiled wood bench. 

  
  
  


***

People used to say Dutch was the best driver they’d ever seen, like he was born with a steering wheel in his hand and a clutch pedal under his feet. 

Those people had never met his brother. 

Sometimes, Chad would do this thing where they’d be out driving, and he’d close his eyes just for a second, and sort of let his fingers float over the wheel, like he could make the car drive itself, or control it with his mind. He’d smile, wide and sweet and sharp, open his eyes back up and look over at Dutch like they were Butch and the Kid, Frank and Jesse, banditos on the run. 

When Dutch dreams he’s eight years old in the green Mustang with his brother, Chad on the edge of seventeen and shaking his shoulders out from under the weight of their parents, mom doped to the gills on sleeping pills and white wine, Dad either at the hospital or quoting the bible to his kids instead of hugging them. Telling them God’s love was more important than his. 

Chad built that car with their father, during the only hours he had to give, Sunday afternoons after Church. Dutch would run around handing tools to them, trying to be useful, trying to absorb the wordless way they worked together, piecing the car together from wreckage, towed home from the salvage yard. 

He’s five years old. They’re in the garage, Chad opens the creaking battered door and drops down into the leather seat. Dad is turned toward the work bench, wiping his hands on a red rag, streaked with black oil. _ Ok, give her a go- _ and they don’t see Dutch, peering his head over the passenger-side fender, one hand outstretched, he just wants to feel the rumble of the motor as it turns over, coughs to life. Dutch’s fingers stretch out but they only reach far enough to brush against the rough black rubber serpentine belt. Chad turns the engine over and something bites and Dutch’s fingers are on _ fire _, he pulls his small, chubby hand back like lightning, tears instant, he stumbles backward into his father's legs. He looks up and his father is looking down, shaking his head. He hears his own sobs and the absence of the engine noise, suddenly cut silent- but he can only see the blood, a startling deep red, he can’t even see the tips of his fingers anymore, it’s pouring down his knuckles and his wrist, splashing down onto his striped blue overalls. 

Chad’s there before anything else happens, yanking his t-shirt off to wrap around Dutch’s hand, his pale, fourteen-year-old chest starkly white in the afternoon sun. He thinks Chad scooped him up and took him inside, but he only remembers the warmth of his brother’s arms and chest, the sound of his voice ripping through the air- _ why weren’t you watching him?! _

His father sits on the edge of his bed that night, Dutch’s hand is wrapped up useless, like a croquet mallet in gauze. His father looks down at him under his blankets, and Dutch looks up, tears at the corners of his eyes, and complains that his hand hurts, pulsing hot and angry. His father runs a hand over his forehead, wipes the tears from his cheeks. 

“It’ll pass, son. ‘_For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ _” He passes his hand again gently over Dutch’s forehead, and closes the bedroom door softly. 

Chad comes into his room that night, tucks him under his arm and reads a Hardy Boys mystery out loud to him, _ What Happened At Midnight_. Chad asks if his hand feels any better and goes out to the kitchen for a bag of frozen corn and a soft white towel. He lays Dutch’s wrapped fingers onto the bag and the coolness seeps in through the gauze and makes his hand shrink about three sizes. 

“Thanks,” Dutch sniffs. 

“That’s my job, buddy.” Chad pulls him tighter into his side, ruffling his blonde curls. “I'm your big brother.” 

Dutch wonders if he has any responsibility as the little brother. Who was supposed to take care of Chad? He didn’t have a big brother, after all. 

“Don’t worry about me, bud.” Chad kisses his temple. “You don’t have to worry about stuff like that.” 

  
  


***

  
  


So here’s how it works. 

To meet the terms of his probation, he has to get a job. To get to the job, or really to do _ anything _ on your own, you have to have a car. To drive you have to have a driver’s license. To get a California DL, you have to provide proof of identity (thank God Dutch still had his social security card when he was arrested) and you also have to have proof of California residency. Dutch didn’t have a place because his old bank account was frozen, which was why he was crashing with Johnny in the first place- and thank God he had Jimmy working that one out for him. So Jimmy’s solution is to have Johnny and Daniel draw up an actual lease and have Dutch sign it, like they were his landlords, which made Dutch feel like shit because he hadn’t been able to pay Johnny any money yet, not that he was asking but Dutch didn’t like being on the dole or under anybody’s shoe, intended or not, and this whole “felon and pony show” was getting a little old. 

So he finally gets all that shit put together after a couple weeks, and has Johnny drop him off at the DMV and tells him to get lost for a couple hours, he doesn’t need a babysitter, thanks. It’s a _ two hour wait _\- and when some kid watlzes in and heads for the front of the line, and Dutch barks at him because it’s like his civic duty, felon or not- the kid looks up from his phone and gives him some smarmy, defensive excuse that he’d “saved his place online” and he even offers to text Dutch the website. Which is when Dutch looks around and notices he’s in the schmuck line, with all the old ladies and homeless people, all the losers, and everybody under the age of 60 is skipping in with a computer phone in hand. 

Dutch used to be one of the young ones, one of the sharp ones. 

Finally, another hour later, he gets to the front of the line with the stack of papers that Jimmy has pre-vetted, a tired looking dumpy brunette thumbs skeptically through his stack, but finally puts it down and starts typing away on her keyboard. He gets his fingerprints scanned (like they didn’t already have those on file somewhere) and an eye exam (still better than 20/20, the only thing he’d thank his father for), they snap his picture, he fills out the stupid little test, passes, and finally, _ finally _\- they hand him a paper receipt. 

“Ok, so where’s my license?” he smiles crooked and sly at the dumpy brunette. Used to work like a charm, but this broad was built out of brick, apparently. That or he was losing it. 

“This is your permit. You’ll have to book an appointment for a road test. We’re three weeks out.” She points to a little screen that says, _ Touch Me! _ and yells “_Next!” _but Dutch leans over the counter.

“Honey,” he starts with a chuckle, pushing the paper permit back across the counter. “I’m fifty two years old- I was driving my dad’s cars when I was _ eight _, and I was winning street races two blocks from here in the ‘90s- I know how to drive a goddamn car-” 

Dumpy Brunette narrows her mascara-caked eyelids. “_Honey _ ,” she starts, not a good sign. “I don’t care if you’re Dale Earnhardt, you haven’t had a licence in over two years so you take the test like everybody else. You can make your appointment _ here- _” She finishes by pushing the paper permit back across the counter with her purple lacquered finger, and jerks her head at the little computer screen. 

“_NEXT!” _She yells. 

Dutch makes his appointment with help from the fifteen year old girl behind him in line (he probably looked like he needed it), and when Johnny finally picks him up outside the DMV and asks how it goes, he sits back and closes his eyes. 

“Just get me a fuckin’ beer, Johnny.” 

Johnny grins behind his sunglasses, and takes him to a bar. 

  
  


***

His driver’s test is in three weeks, and all he wants to do is _drive_ and not feel like a stupid child that has to be buckled in and toted around. Daniel still spends some mornings at the dealership working part time with his ex-wife, and Johnny spends most every weekday afternoon and evening at the new dojo, leaving Dutch mostly back at the house in front of the tv. 

He doesn’t want to crowd him but a couple times a week he says yes to Johnny’s invitation, and he hangs out and watches the classes and chats with Robby and Miguel. (Johnny explains there was some kinda bad blood between them but they seem to tolerate each other okay now, and they sorta remind Dutch of a young _ them- _ two alpha dogs competing to be the best.) He’s immediately taken with Robby, he’s sort of quiet and watches and listens more than he speaks, and Dutch remembers Johnny’s stories about Robby’s delinquencies and youthful rebellions. He’s clearly sharp, and Dutch can only imagine the damage the kid could do when he put his mind to it. 

He fights funny, though. Way more heavy on the defense, he and Miguel spar, and Robby sort of leads him around the mat, blocking and ducking out of the way, quick and graceful until he finds an opening in Diaz’s more familiar movements. They’re pretty evenly matched. Fun to watch, too. 

“What’s with his style?” Dutch sidles up to Johnny, watching the boys on the mat. 

“LaRusso taught him most of what he knows,” Johnny’s blue eyes follow the fight. “Miyagi’s style. Okinawan.” 

“Oh, yeah? Wasn’t hot on Cobra Kai?” 

“Wasn’t hot on me,” Johnny grimaces. “It’s a long story.” 

The door swings open with the chime of bells, Dutch turns to see LaRusso and his kids, Samantha bouncing in as Daniel sticks back to talk to the frowny girl at the front computer. She was new, apparently. 

Sam gives Johnny a side hug, smiling up at him warmly, he gives her a “_hey, kid _”, hugging back. She looks curiously up at Dutch. 

“You must be Uncle Dutch?” And she’s got a voice like cherry pie and bluer eyes than Johnny. She was a heartbreaker, he could see that, but maybe a healer, too. 

“Yeah,” Dutch starts to answer, arms crossed over his chest, but LaRusso’s other kid (_he’s a pain in the ass_, Johnny had warned him, _ spoiled rotten _) pipes up, drawing Dutch’s gaze down. 

“Dad said you were in _ prison_.” The kid’s eyes get all big, he’s holding about a liter of coke in one hand. 

Dutch centers his stance, squares his jaw, and does his best to really _ loom _ over the kid. 

“Did he tell you what I did to get in?” 

Anthony shakes his head, mouth dropping a little. 

“You ever heard of _ El Chapo _?” 

The kid’s mouth drops all the way open, and Johnny muffles a laugh behind his hand. Dutch crouches down, pulls a folding knife out of his pocket, holds it in front of Anthony’s nose. 

“Let’s just say...he gave me this knife in exchange for some....” He pauses for dramatic effect. “...favors.” 

Anthony looks like he’s halfway between hero worship and shitting his pants. “Whoa,” he says. “Cool.” 

Daniel finally joins them, bumping shoulders gently with Johnny and they make gooey eyes at each other for a second before Daniel mutters something in Johnny’s ear.

“You sure?” Johnny glances back to the girl at the counter. 

“Yeah, it’ll be good for her.” Daniel nods. 

“Your funeral,” Johnny mutters as Daniel leans back to yell at the new girl. 

“TORY-” Daniel yells. “Get over here- wheel time.” 

Tory, apparently, leans over the counter, her face impressively wrinkled in simultaneous disgust and disbelief. Dutch wonders if she practices in the mirror. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she snaps at Daniel, and Dutch likes her already. 

“C’mon, Tory.” Robby calls, entreating and with an actual smile. 

“I’m busy,” she keeps her venom focused on Daniel. Johnny keeps silent, but his eyes dance in amusement. 

“Do it later,” Daniel calls, firmly. “Let’s go.” 

Dutch hears the cash drawer slam shut and other indiscernible stomps and banging and heavy breathing until she finally walks over and toes her shoes off in front of the mat. 

“C’mon, Sam. In the middle.” Daniel calls to Sam, but she’s already pulling her hair back, walking over to Miguel, kicking at him playfully. So that was a thing. 

Robby takes his place at Sam’s shoulder as Tory pulls her legs up, stretching her quads. 

“No, no.” Daniel corrects. “Sam and Tory in the middle. Ladies vs. gents.” 

“Oh, come on-” Tory groans. 

Sam sighs, not happy, but resigned. 

“Bow,” Daniel instructs, and the kids bow in a loose circle before resuming their positions. 

“Fighting positions,” Johnny steps forward, one arm out. Sam and Tory move back to back, grumbling at each other before they fall silent, focusing on their opponents. 

“_FIGHT _!” he yells. 

  
  


***

  
  


The fight doesn’t last all that long. Dutch gathers that the exercise is a sort of team building one, with the kids in the middle working to watch each other’s back. LaRusso keeps telling Tory to ‘focus’, which Dutch thinks a pretty unhelpful instruction for a girl that was clearly already pissed off, fighting in front of an audience, and he’d guess that yelling at somebody to _‘focus’_ generally has the opposite effect.

Tory ends up walking backwards into Samantha’s elbow, accidentally taking a hit to the cheek as Sam was reaching back to swing around to block Robby. Sam and Robby sort of stop but Tory gets back up with a scream of frustration, and rushes back into her fight with Miguel. 

Dutch wonders what the fuck this kid did to piss her off so bad, because she clearly had a bone to pick. Daniel yells at them to stop and Robby has to pull her off Diaz, earning an elbow between the ribs, and he finally drops her. Daniel approaches but she throws him off, grabs her bag from the counter and storms out. 

LaRusso goes after her, the door ringing shut behind him. 

Dutch lets out a low whistle. “Who pissed in her cheerios?” 

“Miguel cheated on her with Sam.” Anthony provides helpfully, peeking into one of the pizza boxes Daniel had left on the front counter. “Ooo, hawaiian!” 

Everyone in the room yells at Anthony to ‘_shut up _’ and Anthony shakes his head, mouth full of pizza. 

Robby has his brooding face back on, watching Daniel and Tory out in the parking lot until Johnny cuffs him lightly on the back of the head, pulling him in for a playful noogie. 

“She doesn’t need an audience, Robby,” he chides, gently. “C’mon, let’s get something to eat.” 

“What about you?” 

Dutch turns back toward the pizza, where Anthony was gesturing at him with a dripping slice of pepperoni. Sam throws a paper towel at his face, he catches it and ignores her. 

“What?”

“Can you fight?” the kid asks, still chewing. 

“You wanna find out?” Dutch steps over, arms still crossed. 

“You should fight Johnny. See who’s better.” 

Dutch frowns down at the kid, but he starts pulling his denim jacket from his shoulders. “You’re a little shit starter, you know that?” 

Johnny shakes his head, smiling. “He’s not that stupid, LaRusso.” 

“You scared, Johnny boy?” Dutch bugs his eyes out and walks backwards to the mat, bouncing on the balls of his feet, experimentally. He thinks he might have pulled something already. “C’mon, cream puff!” 

“You’re all mouth, Dutch-” Johnny laughs, following him in a circle. 

Dutch lunges and tackles him around the middle before he can finish, and Johnny goes down laughing. They wrestle around on the floor, and Miguel and Robby come over cheering for Johnny, but Dutch has the LaRusso kids on his side, and he comes up panting and yells for Anthony to _ get him! _ and Anthony leaps on Johnny’s back, arms around his neck, so Johnny rolls off Dutch so he can grab the kid under one arm and stand up and carry him off, upside down, squealing and giggling like a girl. 

Dutch watches them on his back from the dojo floor, way more winded than he should be, until Robby comes over and gives him a hand up. 

He’s not sure he’s ever seen Johnny smile quite like that, swinging a chubby pre-teen around by his ankles in a dojo he only half owns, surrounded by pizza and and vinyl mats and teenage laughter. 

***

LaRusso cracks open the door a minute later, letting the cool parking lot air pool inside, steps inside and waves to Miguel.

“Miguel, grab one of those boxes, we’re takin’ off.” 

Miguel lets out one of those teenage soul-deep sighs. “We can’t eat here? Hang out?”

“Unless you got another ride lined up. I’m takin’ Tory back, you’re on the way.” 

Sam, pipes up from her seat on the floor next to Miguel. “I’ll take him home.” 

“You’ve got your brother to take home-” 

“I’ll take him.” Robby looks up at Daniel from the register, finishing up where Tory left off, a half-filled paper cup of Coca Cola next to him. He doesn’t meet her eye, but she shoots him a grateful look. 

Daniel turns back to Sam. “I told Carmen 11:00, _ latest. _You drop him off and go home straight after.” 

“Dad-” 

“No, arguments, Sam. You’ve got a curfew, too.” Daniel’s eyebrows float seriously upward, chin tucked down. 

“Fine,” Sam huffs. 

“Okay.” 

Johnny leaves his plate of pizza on the ground next to Dutch and pushes himself up, walks over to the door, and they linger half outside for a minute, muttering. Dutch catches something about Tory, _ she’ll be alright _, Daniel’s head tilting backward to nod toward the car. Johnny leans down for a brief kiss, LaRusso’s chin held delicately between his fingers. Anthony groans loudly and covers his eyes, Miguel wolf whistles. Johnny gives the room at large the finger and pushes LaRusso out on the sidewalk, closing the door behind while they talk. 

Dutch canes his head to peer out the window for a second, then turns back to the kids. 

“So is this still weird for you guys?” 

“_Yes- _” Anthony, emphatically. 

Miguel shrugs. “It’s just nice to see Sensei happy.” He looks over at Sam, who looks up at Robby. 

Robby shrugs, switching off the computer, shoving the cash into a small leather bag, zipping it closed. “A little.” 

Sam nods. “It was weird for a while. But they really love each other. And my mom’s happy with her boyfriend-” 

“_Lame- _oush!” Anthony yells. Dutch doesn’t understand this. 

Sam rolls her eyes. “But everybody gets along, so it’s actually pretty cool. It’s like our family got bigger.” She smiles at Robby, warm and wide, but it fades a little when he doesn’t look back at her. Miguel starts to stand, dipping down to grab his backpack.

“Huh,” Dutch nods. Something happening there. “And, uh. Johnny told me Kreese is still across town?” 

Miguel’s face darkens. “Yeah. It sucks. They’ve still got more students than we do.” Sam takes his hand. 

Robby comes back around the counter, grabbing his coke. “We got Tory. We’ll get more.” 

Sam sighs with a little groan. “If she lasts. She _ hates _me.” 

Miguel grimaces. “Not as much as me.” 

Robby nods, a little aloof. “She just needs time.” 

“Dad’s giving her plenty of time- if she can’t control her anger, she’ll never learn anything.” 

“She’s been through a lot, Sam.” 

Miguel is oddly quiet through the exchange, still holding Sam’s hand. 

“So have you.” Dutch watches Sam’s blue eyes rove, tender and almost motherly, over Robby. “You don’t let your anger control your life.” 

“It did for sixteen years. And it doesn’t go away so easy.” Robby looks briefly down at Sam and Miguel’s hands, then over at Anthony. 

“C’mon, Anthony. Get your stuff.” 

“_Aw, man! _” 

Dutch nods a goodbye to Robby and Anthony just as Johnny and Daniel push back inside the dojo. Daniel takes the cash from Robby and hugs him briefly, and forces Anthony into a hug and kiss. Johnny hugs Robby tightly, kissing his hair. 

Daniel leaves with a wave to Dutch, off to take Tory home, her head bowed in the darkened windows of the Audi. Robby shoves a chattering Anthony into a red SUV and they pull off in the opposite direction. Sam and Miguel walk slowly, fingers entangled, to a white convertible parked under a security light. 

Johnny locks the dojo doors, keys jangling, and Dutch studies the decal covering the door and windows. A crane, it’s wings arcing up in a circle around a red sun. Below, a cobra, fangs bared, coiled down protectively around itself looking up at the crane’s dangling legs, wary.

“What’s with the logo, anyway?” 

Johnny pulls the keys from the lock, and steps back with Dutch, studying the decal, washed white from the parking lot lights. 

“Oh,” Johnny shrugs. “It’s uh....it’s us.” He opens his mouth, as if to explain more, but doesn’t seem to find anything. They stand there a minute, a little awkwardly. 

“I dunno. It’s supposed to be like, the styles, or whatever. Offense and defense. LaRusso’s always jabbering away about balance.” 

“Yeah, man.” Dutch nods. “It’s cool.” 

Johnny nods. “It’s alright. He paid some dude stupid money to draw it up.” 

Dutch laughs. “It’s kind of backwards though.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You’re supposed to be the cobra, right? Cobra Kai, the way of the fist, all offense. But in the picture the snake is the defensive one.” Dutch points at the window, clearing his throat. “You know, he’s all coiled up. Like he’d rather slither away, go back to his weeds.” 

“Huh.” Johnny frowns. 

“You think LaRusso noticed that?” Dutch pulls out a cigarette, blows the smoke out into the night. 

“Shit, man.” Johnny leads the way across the parking lot, to the matte black Challenger, glossier black racing stripes running down the hood. He waits for Johnny to unlock the car, then drops down into the seat next to his friend. 

“I don’t understand half of what’s in his head.” Johnny finishes. 

“But you like what you do understand.” Dutch taps his ashes, cigarette hanging from his fingers out the window. 

“Yeah.” Johnny nods. He starts up the car, and Dutch feels the engine rumble, growl like a tiger through the leather seat and under his boots. His hand pauses on the stick, and he looks across the seat at Dutch. 

“You wanna drive? I won’t tell if you won’t.” Johnny’s blue eyes glint a little in the low light, playful, and he looks about 18 years old.

Dutch feels his own smile mirror back, slow and wide, almost unfamiliar. 

They switch and Dutch revs the engine, purring for him like she had been waiting for his touch. It feels like coming home, fifteen years gone, and right back again, the clutch hot underfoot, the stick steady in his hand.

“Here we go,” he says, voice a little rough.

  
  


***

Chad dies in 1981. He was 22 years old. 

Dutch is at school when they pull him out of his eighth grade chemistry class. Mr. Morris, he remembers. His Aunt Jean meets him in the front office, puts him in the passenger seat of her big white Cadillac DeVille and drives him to Pacifica Hospital. He thinks maybe he’s just going to visit his father at work, but they go in through the Emergency Room doors, and finally he sees his mother sitting in a waiting room chair, face slack and wet and his father drawn and pale and awful. 

His parents won’t tell him what happened, but he finds out days, maybe weeks later. Chad was sleeping with some girl, a server at the bar he was working at. Her husband came home and found Chad in bed with her. He walked to the closet, pulled a .357 revolver from the top shelf, and shot Chad six times in the chest. He was dead in the ambulance, but Dutch didn’t know that, standing with his backpack still on in the waiting room of the ER. 

The Mustang was still parked behind the bar, and they forget about it that day and the next day, and when they do remember and try to track it down after the funeral, it’s sitting like an empty shell. The front end in jagged pieces, engine compartment yawning and empty, doors ripped away. Sitting wheelless on it’s hubs like a gazelle with its legs gnawed off to bloody stumps. His father falls to his knees like anything really matters anymore. They tow the skeleton to the garage, and it sits like a ghost for weeks. 

His father suggests they restore it, like it’s some kind of sick bonding exercise, or a misguided attempt to bring Chad back from the dead, pretending that Dutch and his father could repair everything broken between them. 

Years later, when Dutch is living in San Diego, when he meets Marco and starts driving cars across the border, he sometimes thinks he sees it, out of the corner of his eye. The gleaming chrome and dark green paint. 

He remembers, then, that the day the car was finished, painted and looking brand new, all the tiny imperceptible wounds Chad had put into the car during his life- high school dents and dings, scratches from his key ring when he would lean back against the door drinking a beer- all polished away. Like he’d never died, or maybe like he’d never lived. 

Dutch remembers that _ that _ was the day he took the car out of the garage and rammed it full speed into the big oak tree at the end of the block. 

He remembers then, driving around San Diego in the dark, high on cocaine- that his brother was dead, and his father’s heart was broken. 

All of it, all of it beyond repair. 

  
  
  


***

  
  


Ali comes to town. 

Johnny picks her up from the airport on a Thursday afternoon and they spend all day together, allegedly. Dutch doesn’t actually know this, only reads it in Daniel’s body language, covering all of Johnny’s classes for the day at the dojo. Dutch doesn’t have anything better to do and asks if he can tag along, and is thusly treated to a full day of a grumpy, snappy LaRusso. 

Johnny comes by that evening after dropping her off at her parent’s house, a spring in his step, chattering uncharacteristically about how great Ali was doing, and looking, and Johnny tells them both about the dinner plans. 

“She’s coming over?” Daniel asks, suddenly tuning in, turning away from correcting a younger student’s position. Dutch steps back from Johnny a touch as Daniel walks closer, leaving the class on their own. 

“Yeah. Tomorrow night. She wants to see you, too. What’s the problem?” 

“You didn’t think to maybe check with me first?” 

Dutch purses his lips awkwardly, sidles further away. 

“What, you got _ plans__?”_ Johnny scoffs, being a dick. 

“Well what is the _ plan, _ speaking of? Are _ you _ gonna cook?” 

Johnny sighs. “We could do carryout if you don’t want to-” 

“_Carryout _ ? You’re gonna invite her over for _ carryout _?!” 

“What is the big fucking deal?” Johnny hisses, failing at keeping his voice low. “She’s in town, so I invited her over, what’s the problem?”

“I just-” Daniel sputters. “You could have given me more time-”

“You have a whole _ day_-” 

“I have to get back to class,” Daniel snaps, throwing his hands up. “It’s fine. I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry about it Johnny.” 

Johnny wipes his hands down over his face as Daniel stalks back to the kids, clapping his hands and announcing some kind of exercise. Dutch grabs Johnny and leads him back out the front door. 

“I’d go get some groceries if I were you,” Dutch snickers. 

“And buy what? He didn’t say what he was gonna make!” Johnny drops down into the Challenger, slamming the door shut. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Dutch slips his sunglasses on. “Just buy everything.” 

  
  


***

The next night Daniel makes something Italian that, per usual, tastes amazing. Johnny brings Ali over and they enter the front door, Dutch can hear her _oohs_ and _ahs_ as Johnny points shit out, explains how they’re remodeling or whatever, _blah blah blah_, basically the same tour Dutch got but with a little more effort thrown in. 

Dutch is leaning on the kitchen counter watching LaRusso down his third glass of wine in the last ten minutes, alternately pressing his fingers into his temples or his eyelids. He mutters something just before Johnny and Ali reach the kitchen, and Dutch couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t _ fucking shoot me already,_ but LaRusso has already pushed himself off the counter and plastered a smile on his face- _ heeeeeeey Ali, great to see you _\- or something like you have to say in situations like this. 

She looks great, maybe too great judging by the way LaRusso’s hopping around the kitchen pouring glasses of wine, looking everywhere but Johnny. He already set the table an hour ago. 

It’s weird, definitely weird- they’re all crowded around the low-lit island, and Ali’s chattering away valiantly, as if it’s only a few weeks of space between them, instead of decades, as if there was any reason at all for her to be here besides Johnny’s frustrating, bewildering inability to let go of old dogs, old hurts. Hell, it was almost like he was _ trying _to get bit. 

Like he _ liked _it. 

Well. That was probably the whole reason he was with LaRusso now, wasn’t it? 

Silence finally wins over, and Ali’s pained smile wanes, just a little bit, and her eyes drift over to Dutch. She looks him up, and down, and sort of ends in a slow smile. He can’t tell if it’s genuine or not.

“Hello, Dutch,” she tilts her head to one side. “How’ve you been?” 

He clicks his tongue, “Never better, baby.” 

She rolls her eyes. 

Still a snob.

  
  


***

  
  


Dutch lets LaRusso pile more onto his plate, only because it gave the guy something to do other than sit and jog his knee up and down and try not to drink his wine too fast. Johnny and Ali are sitting side by side, Johnny across from Daniel, in a really terribly executed reflection of past romantic entanglements. To be fair, though, there wasn’t really what you would call an ideal seating chart, not with these three. It was kind of fucked up however you arranged it. 

Ali tells them all about Greg and her dogs and the hospital and her patients- probably all bald and pale and sad. She seems jazzed up about it but Dutch thinks how fucking depressing that job would be. Somehow they get on to her parents (her mother is sick, father isn’t handling it well, or something) and then from there, somehow the conversation segues back to old times. 

“I stopped by that little place over on Burbank, over by the community college?” Ali takes another bite of chicken, laying her silverware down in the proper “resting” position. Old habits die hard. Dutch still finds it annoying that he knows which fork is for the salad. 

Johnny leans forward on his elbows, grinning. “The bartender there liked you, you always got us free drinks-” He looks back across the table to Daniel, “I think it closed before you got here, it was kind of a dive-” 

Daniel shakes his head. “No, I remember. _ Louisa’s_. They had really great onion rings.” 

“_Louisa’s- _” Johnny nods, tapping the table. “That was it. Can’t believe I forgot, we used to go there every Tuesday night after Tommy finally got a decent fake ID-” 

“How’d you remember that place?” Ali smiles warmly at Daniel, voice relaxed and easy for maybe the first time of the whole night. 

Daniel pauses, fork in hand, pushing the remains of his salad around. “You asked me to take you there for your birthday, it was the week before prom. Afterward we took the Ford to the drive-in theater in Glendale, by the park.” 

“Oh,” her smile falters, and the Dutch can feel the air leaking from the room. She shakes her head, fingers brushing her forehead. “Right, _ yeah_, I remember that-” 

Daniel laughs, pained, and Johnny holds very still. 

“It’s fine. Not a big deal. It probably wasn’t all that memorable- ” 

“Daniel-” she winces, trying.

“It was just the one time-” Daniel stands, grabs his own plate and Dutch’s half-empty one, and Dutch leans back, letting him. “Seriously not a big deal.” 

“Hey, let’s do it later?” Johnny sighs, eyebrows up looking tired.

Daniel shakes his head, face closed off. “It’s fine, you two catch up.” 

Dutch watches the tight line of LaRusso’s spine, filling up the sink and throwing dishes around, and Johnny rubbing at his temples across the table and Ali leaning back in her chair, biting her white front teeth into her red bottom lip. 

“I need a smoke,” he grumbles, and scrapes his chair back over the bamboo flooring. 

***

He’s through half a cigarette, watching the smoke rise up into the flat smog-black sky, when Daniel slides the back door open, a half-filled glass tumbler in hand. 

Dutch side-eyes him. “Water break? Hittin’ it hard tonight, LaRusso.” 

Daniel shakes his head. “Vodka.” 

Dutch’s eyebrows go up. “Christ. Didn’t know you had it in you.” 

“You want some?” 

“Yeah.” Dutch takes a gulp. “Fuckin’ weird in there, right?” 

Daniel nods, squeezes his eyes shut. 

“You know,” he shakes his head, ignoring Dutch. “I used to think I loved her. I mean I did. I was crazy about her. She was _ so _important, that year. She was like this...little shining light.” He shakes his head, breath like a washboard, shuddering and uneven. “I think I knew, anyways. That it wasn’t like that. For her. Still kind of a gut punch, though.” 

LaRusso coughs out a humorless, self-serving laugh, and Dutch isn’t good at this kind of thing. He just stands there, smoking, hoping LaRusso will resolve his sad little soliloquy on his own. 

“And I dunno why I’m even...I mean I don’t have those feelings anymore. I love _ him- _ so it. It shouldn’t matter about her. Me and her, I mean. If I’m worried about anything, it should be _ them_, right?” 

“Uh...” Dutch shrugs noncommittally, totally unhelpful. 

“Kinda makes you dizzy, thinking about it. You know,” LaRusso continues, using the hand not holding the tumbler of vodka to twirl his index finger in little looping arcs. “Around and around, that’s only good in basketball. Think how the _ ball feels _-” 

Dutch doesn’t want to try thinking about how LaRusso feels, moping over an old ex who was probably thinking about some other guy the whole time, and then thirty years later _ being with _ that other guy, thinking he’s probably thinking about _ her- _

Daniel's hand drops back down to his side, and he rambles on, sloshing his vodka around. “_Back and forth, back and forth _ a million times over because they're both not through with you, yet.”

“C’mon,” Dutch grabs the vodka and tosses the cigarette into the glass. “Johnny says you’re a lightweight. You can’t give up that easy. Back in the ring, _ Danielle_.” 

He pushes Daniel back inside. 

  
  


***

Ali and Johnny are still at the table, and the awkwardness Daniel left at the dinner table is apparently gone, and they’re back to their previous chatter, just this side of low-level giddiness. Johnny’s head turns to track Daniel back to the kitchen and the clatter of dishes. Dutch sits heavily and gives Johnny a sufficient enough look to send him off to go try some feather smoothing. 

He wants nothing more than another cigarette, but figures he should give it a go. There was nothing worse, as he’d learned these past few weeks, than co-habitating with a pissy LaRusso. 

He levels a look across the table. “You better cut it out.” 

Ali snaps her head around. “Excuse me?” 

“You know what. He’s not on the table anymore.” 

She leans forward on her elbows, giving no quarter. He likes that. “I’m _ married_.” 

“That doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t mean you’re happy where you’re at.” 

Her mouth turns down, her eyes are a little watery. 

He studies her, easing back in his chair. “Maybe you’re just takin’ a peek at the neighbor’s yard. Maybe you’re trying to see if you’ve still got it.” He puts his feet up in Johnny’s empty chair. “Either way it’s a risky game you’re playing, Ali-Bear. Nobody’s gonna be happy at the end of the day like that.” 

“I’m not- I’m not trying to do that.” 

They sit in silence. 

“You’re such an asshole,” she whispers shakily, fingers around her temples. 

“Mmm.” He tips his head back. “You wanna go for a drink?” 

  
  


***

  
  


Tommy gets trashed at the Snowball dance, winter of ‘83, their Junior year. Bobby and Babs are making out in the corner and Ali and Johnny are in the parking lot somewhere, shouting at each other because he showed up to the thing already half in the bag. So Jimmy takes Tommy home and leaves Dutch walking Susan to his car.

“I don’t know why I hang out with you guys,” she takes a cigarette out of her purse, leans into his hands cupped around his lighter. “I don’t know why I thought he’d be an improvement over you.” She works that big square jaw around, he can see mascara caked over her eyelashes, and violet eyeshadow glittering over her skin. 

“I dunno why you did either.” He leans against the door, a mint green 1971 Plymouth Barracuda, and lights up. Guys at the shop had just finished the custom paint job. Turned out real nice. 

“I should have some fucking standards for myself, you know,” she complains, kicking at the chewed up asphalt. 

“You could do worse than me.” 

“You’re an asshole. You treated me like shit,” she blows smoke straight up into the night air, wrapped in her down jacket, her neck stretched way out, skyward. She was funny like that.

“You could still do worse, Suse.” 

They stand there smoking, Dutch shoves his hands way down in the pockets of his leather jacket, cigarette balanced between his lips and the tips of his teeth.

“You look nice tonight.” He pushes off the car to face her, eyes raking up and down. “You look hot.” 

She bites the corner of her lip, and throws her cigarette down under her heel, cocking her head to the side. He always liked that she had attitude, had some spine. She wasn’t smart, not like Ali- but then again, neither was Dutch. Her dark eyes rake over him, too, until she finally shakes her head. 

“My mother always told me to be realistic, right. Know my station. Just because we’ve got money doesn’t mean I get to buy the fairy prince. She said, ‘_ find a good man, not too pretty, not too angry. Make sure you don’t love him too much. Find a nice jewish man who will provide _’. Know what I said to my mother?” 

Dutch just raises an eyebrow, grinning. “No, baby,” he says. He knows what he’s doing, something low and warm kicking free in his gut. 

“I told her to mind her own goddamned business.” 

She stands there in her big black puffy coat, grinning at him, white teeth and sparkling black eyes, so he throws his cigarette down and kisses her hard with lots of tongue like he knows she likes. 

“Fuck Tommy,” she huffs into his mouth, he presses his hips into hers, her ass up against the car. “He’s missing out, right? Tell me he’s missing out.”

“Yeah, baby,” he says, and opens the passenger door, seat already tilted forward. He pushes her back into the car, she crawls backward until her head hits the window. He turns and pulls the door shut, and she’s already pushing his jacket off his shoulders. “I’ll treat you better than him,” he promises. 

Of course, he lied. 

She doesn't answer his phone calls the next couple of days, and after giving Tommy the cold shoulder for a week at school she’s back under his arm by New Years. He sees them necking against the lockers after lunch and checks Tommy hard in the ribs during gym class. Dutch snatches the basketball, lays it up easy into the basket as Jimmy leans over Tommy, curled in on himself, still on his knees. _ Jesus, take it easy, Dutch_. Tommy doesn’t look Dutch in the eye the next couple days, but he comes around by Friday. 

A month or so after the dance Susan shows up to the races on Pershing Drive, in the Bob’s Big Boy parking lot. None of the other Cobras ever showed up, it was a different crowd, older and rougher and even Johnny was uncomfortable with it. Dutch was set to win maybe $300 bucks tonight, and he’s practically vibrating when he sees her, hopped up on the sound of revving engines and the smell of burning rubber. 

She isn’t dressed up like the other racer’s girlfriends on a Saturday night. Her face is bare, no makeup, her hair is pulled back, and she’s wrapped up in that same black jacket she’d worn to the dance. 

“I’m late,” she says, with a tilt of her head, mouth pressed in a tight line. 

“_What__?”_ he says, confused, pissed off she was messing up his head space. “You gotta get lost, Suse, I gotta race in five minutes-”

“I took a _ test _,” she screws her face up, but she doesn’t cry. “It came out blue.” 

Something about the way she says _ test_, about the way she was looking at him now, finally clues him in to what she was really saying. His face must do something significant, because she raises her hands up, almost like he was gonna hit her or something. 

“Don’t- don’t worry about it. I’m gonna take care of it. Ali’s driving me into the city tomorrow. UCLA has like a, a women’s clinic or something. She had a cousin who had one done, it...” she presses her fingers to her forehead, looking down and away from Dutch. 

“It’s for the best. I dunno, I...I’m not. I can’t be a mom, right?” She looks briefly up at him, but he’s pretty sure she’s not really asking. 

“Just don’t say anything to the guys,” she presses on. Dutch still doesn’t have a goddamn thing in his head. “Ali’s sworn to secrecy, not even Barbara knows, okay?” She kicks at the ground, and finally looks up at him. 

“Do you understand what I’m sayin’ to you?” 

“You’re pregnant,” he mumbles. 

“Yeah, genius. Just not for long.” Her tone tries for levity, but her smile collapses when she looks back at him. 

“Do you...so it’s mine.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Not Tommy.” 

“Not possible,” she grimaces, mouth tight. 

“Okay,” he says, numbly. “And you’re...you’re definitely not keeping it.” 

“No...just. There’s no way.” 

“Right. Yeah, that’s good. That’d be...” 

“Yeah.” She swallows, looks near tears. 

The guys are calling him over, waving their hands at him, his red Datsun waiting at the start. 

“Is it a boy or a girl?” he didn’t even mean to ask, it just pops out, and his voice sounds strange and desperate in his own ears. 

She rolls her eyes, letting a couple tears roll down her cheek. “It’s too early to tell, idiot.” 

She finally leaves, he doesn’t remember what he said after that, or what she said, only that she didn’t stay to watch him race. He takes a corner at speed and feels the rear wheels stutter on the pavement, and the car flips around sideways into a concrete median. He walks away somehow with a pounding head and a broken wrist, but the car is totaled, a hunk of broken glass and folded up metal.

  
  


***

He directs Ali to a bar in Receda, just a couple miles down the road from the paper house. 

He watches her smoke his cigarette, canted sideways on the barstool. They’re outside, and the smoke floats away into the dark night. 

“You know this is illegal, right?” She blows out toward the parking lot, and hands the cigarette back to him, her fingers soft on his rough skin. “California law. You can’t smoke within 20 feet of a public establishment.” 

“Yeah, right.” he laughs, slipping the paper between his lips. She doesn’t. “You’re kidding?” 

She shakes her head, tips her chin down the bar where a dark-haired girl in skin-tight shorts and a white tank-top (you can see right through to her bra, cherry red) is making her way toward them. 

“Hey,” she says, full red lips, but her expression is one of those femi-nazi _ I dress like a whore but don’t blame me when the outfit does the job _ type frowny-faces. Like, tell a girl to smile and she’ll slap you. What’s wrong with smiling, who the fuck doesn’t look more attractive smiling? 

Anyway. 

“_Hey _,” she says again, leveling both of them with a stern look, like she was the hot teacher and they were the naughty students. Life was a porno, lots of times. “You can’t smoke here.” 

“We’re-” Dutch laughs, gesturing to the open patio, it was so fucking stupid. “We’re _ outside _\- you can see the mountains from here, who the fuck cares-” 

Along with the glare, she reaches under the bar, and pulls out an ashtray, pushes it toward him. 

“Jesus Christ,” he looks at Ali. She just shrugs, shoulders reaching up to that jawline that could cut glass. So he takes a last pull and stubs it out in the ashtray.

Ali’s still in her dinner outfit, clearly calculated to show off her body but not look too slutty. Tight dark jeans, a sleeveless black button-down shirt that showed her tits off but still somehow looked classy. She had great tits. Her face had sharpened along with her jaw, high cheekbones and a straight nose, and her eyes looked a little tired. She had more transformed, than aged. He could barely see the bouncy, soft-edged soccer girl from high-school, all freckles and bangs and innocence. 

She had never been innocent, though, not as long as Dutch had known her. 

“What’s it like?” she leans on her elbow on the bar, crossing her legs, focused on him, thumb rubbing over her whiskey glass, and Dutch sort of understands how Johnny never got over this girl. 

“What’s what like?” his beer is getting warm under his hand, and he takes a long drink to catch up. 

“Prison,” she says simply. 

He takes a deep breath, a group of twenty-somethings shoulders their way into the bar, young and bright-eyed and loud and smooth-skinned and alive. 

“Easy,” he answers, rubbing a hand over his knee, the denim rough and dirty. “Real, fuckin’ easy.” 

She nods, takes a sip of her drink, the light catching the gold and glass. “Three hots and a cot, huh?” 

“Sure. The food, though,” he nods, staring at his beer. “The food was shit. I got tired of that.” 

She laughs, her nose wrinkling up a little, painfully gorgeous, and he might even be blushing, of all things, and he chuckles along with her, unused to laughing with a woman.

“What do you think of it all, anyway?” 

He starts at her question. “Of what?” 

“Them. Johnny. And Daniel. Johnny and Daniel.” She slips her tongue around in her mouth. “It sounds so strange, saying their names like that.” 

Dutch thinks about Johnny’s easy, loud laugh, roughhousing with LaRusso around the dojo, about the way Robby looked up at Daniel, Samantha’s teasing prods at Johnny, something about Johnny sleeping in till eleven and Daniel making him bacon and avocado toast.

“It is strange.” he gestures to the bitchy bartender for another beer. “You see the way they look at each other, though.” 

“A lot different than high school,” she jokes. 

Dutch shakes his head. “Not that different.” 

She looks up, thinking, her eye makeup is dark and a little smudged. She’s fucking _ sharp _ this one, he can see the wheels turning behind those honey eyes.

Dutch swallows another drink, interrupting. “Lemme ask you something. Why’d you pick up LaRusso back then, anyway? He was a loser.” Dutch doesn’t feel bad about the assessment. It was true. 

She pauses, the glass rim pressing into her bottom lip. “He was as different from Johnny as I could get. I wanted a break.” 

“That’s not exactly a break-” 

“Daniel...” she rolls her lips in between her teeth, in that way women think make them look sexy. She was pulling it off. “Daniel was a break. He was fresh air.” 

“You used him.” 

“I don’t see it that way.” 

“Did you ever fuck him?

“No.” 

“He ever try and fuck you?” 

“No. What else.” 

Dutch studies her over, angling his head to the side. “I never could figure you out. Just seems kinda cruel, lookin’ back now. Like a lioness picking off an antelope. He didn’t know what hit him. I don’t know why’d you do something like that.” 

Her drink is empty now, and her eyes look a little liquid. Dutch has made a lot of girls cry, in his life. This wasn’t so bad. 

Her fingernails dig into the bar. “I wanted him because he didn’t expect anything out of me. Any bit of my attention I gave him, anytime I said anything to him, it was like he was surprised.” 

“And grateful.” 

“Maybe.” 

She orders a couple of shots, they clink their glasses together and Dutch winces it down. It’s been awhile. 

“And Johnny,” he prompts. 

“Johnny always needed too much, maybe.” 

“Maybe?” 

“I don’t know,” she sighs, heavily. She might be getting tired of him. “It was high school. It was all kiddie stuff, right?” 

“It’ll break your heart. The kiddie stuff more than anything else.” 

She shakes her head, eyes still that honey syrup. She’d curled her hair, short and full around her jaw and messed up enough to make a man jealous just looking at it, like some other guy’d run his hands through it. She’s glowing, gold and black and pink cheeks. 

“Do you think it has anything to do with me?” Her fingers are in her hair, head on her hand on her elbow on the bar. The dim lighting makes him tired, it was always lights out by 10 in the joint, but it makes her look even more beautiful, out here. 

“What. Them?” 

“Yeah. D’you think maybe I hurt ‘em bad enough they had to find each other?” 

“You think you meant that much?” 

“Maybe not.” Her fingers shake a little, eyes down again, nails in her mouth. 

“Maybe so,” he says. 

“What about you?” 

“What about me.” 

“What broke your heart? Kiddie stuff?” 

“Oh, sure.” He scrapes his beer can along the bar, leaving a wet trail of condensation. He thinks he stays quiet long enough to feel awkward, if he cared at all about shit like that. 

She scans him, curiously. 

“You wanna come back to mine?” 

His fingers stop on the beer can. “You stayin’ with your folks?” 

“Second floor bedroom.” She touches her tongue just behind her front teeth, and looks _ up_. “Johnny used to climb up the drain pipe.” 

“I’m too old for that kinda shit.” 

“Me, too.” She slips off the barstool, digs into her purse and leaves a 50 on the bar. He’s always liked a woman that carries cash. She turns, looking a little too aloof. She’s shorter than he remembers, too, even in her heels, he could kiss her forehead without dipping his chin. 

“So? You comin’ over or what?” 

He tips his head, side to side, bones cracking and muscles aching, and gets to his feet, and remembers it doesn’t matter what time it was. No curfew.

“You’re the one with the wheels, kid.” 

She takes his hand and pulls him out to the parking lot, and takes him home.

  
  


***

He takes her to the airport before sunrise, neglecting to tell her he doesn’t actually have his license yet. The highway rolls out in front of him, his hands feel calm and steady on the wheel, weaving steady, back and forth across the white stitch lines painted on the asphalt. She slumps down against her seatbelt, forehead kissing the cool early morning glass, sunglasses over her eyes. 

He pulls up to the terminal, and she gets her bag out of the back seat quicker than he can get around the car, and hauls it up onto the sidewalk. She staring at her computer phone, hiding behind her sunglasses, all these walls. 

“Call me when you get back.” 

She finally puts the phone away, raises her eyebrows over her sunglasses.

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Sure,” he says, fingers twitching in his jacket pocket, itching for a cigarette. “Your ski-bum husband doesn’t have to know.” 

“He’s not a ski instructor anymore.” 

“Okay,” he swallows around a smile. She does that lip biting thing again. 

“I...” she starts, scrambling around for words, and he reaches across to her sunglasses, pulling them gently from her face, and she clicks her tongue, sighs, but he gets to see those brown sugar eyes. 

“_Dutch- _” 

“Hey, c’mon,” he taps a knuckle lightly under her chin. 

“Well I gotta go-” 

“Yeah. I know.” 

“It’s just, security can be a nightmare here.” 

“Uh huh,” he nods, and leans down to kiss her. She sighs, a little annoyed, but kisses him back, and he runs a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her jaw. 

“Okay,” she pulls back, swallowing, and puts her sunglasses back on. “I gotta go.” 

“Let’s do this again sometime,” he teases. “We can get breakfast with your parents after. You can meet my parole officer. ” 

“_God-” _she groans, but she’s smiling, just a little. 

“I had fun, baby,” he smiles back, pulling the words out slow. 

“You’re always fun, Dutch,” she looks back to the doors, he knows she’s almost gone. “That might be the problem, you know.” 

“Come and see me sometime.” 

She shakes her head. “You’ll take the rental car back for me?” 

“Sure,” he lies. 

“Okay,” she nods. “Say bye to Johnny and Daniel for me, will you?” 

“Sure, baby,” he shrugs his hands deeper into his pockets. 

“Okay,” she says, looking a little flustered, “okay.” She turns to go, back straight and stiff under her blazer, but she surprises him by turning back, sunglasses still on, and pulling him in for another kiss. She presses her whole body close, mouth hot and open. He pushes his fingers through her curls again, forcing her sunglasses up on top of her head. 

“Take care of yourself, Dutch,” she breathes into his mouth, still close, eyelashes fluttering low, nose against his cheek. 

“You don’t worry about me, baby.” His voice is a little wrecked, either from her or almost forty years of cigarettes, or because it’s so damn early. All of the above, maybe. 

She kisses him again, and pulls slowly away, an inch at a time. 

“I gotta go,” she says again, and she does, pulls her sunglasses back down, runs her fingers back through her hair, and grabs her bag. He watches her all the way through the glass doors, head up and back straight. 

He whistles low and long, kicking at the pavement before he leaves the rental car running, just leaves it there and walks over to a waiting cab. 

_ Fuck it_, he thinks. They can come get their own damn car. He was tired of driving. 

  
  


***

He gets back to the paper house at sunrise, walks in the front door and toes off his shoes. He gets a couple feet into the living room and sees Johnny and Daniel curled around each other, asleep on the couch, both still in jeans and soft cotton shirts and socks. 

He pulls a blanket up and over their shoulders, twists the blinds shut, and pads quietly into the kitchen, plates and glasses stacked up on the counter near the sink. 

Dutch rolls his sleeves up, fills the sink with hot soapy water, and grabs the dish rag hanging from a little hook under the window looking out over the back yard. He cracks the window open, letting in a cool morning breeze brought in on the sunrise. Bird song and wind chimes fill the kitchen. 

The water is hot over his hands, turning his skin pink, and the contrast is soothing. He feels the dishes smooth under his fingers as he slowly stacks them one by one onto the bamboo drying rack. One at a time, one by one washed clean with a little time and effort. 

He remembers his mother, about what she’d said to him, how he was the one responsible for tearing their world apart, all those years ago. Twenty years ago, they could have moved by now, could have died for all he knew. 

He wipes the counters down, scrubs the stickiness from the granite surfaces, the dinner table, and dries his hands on a soft kitchen towel. 

“Hey, you don’t have to do that-” 

Dutch looks over his shoulder. LaRusso has wandered into the kitchen, rumpled and soft in his sweater and socks. “Don’t worry about it-” 

“Too late.” Dutch quirks his eyebrows, throws the dish towel over his shoulder, and leans back against the counter. He peers around LaRusso. Johnny is still dead to the world, sprawled across the sofa, hugging a cushion in Daniel’s absence. 

“You get her to the airport?” LaRusso heads for the coffee maker. Apparently he’s given up on the tea scheme. 

“Yeah.” 

LaRusso nods, opening a cabinet full of coffee and filters. 

Dutch clears his throat. “She, uh. She wanted me to tell you. She remembers your little date. You guys saw _ The Breakfast Club _ and you walked her up to her door and tried to kiss her, but her old man chased you off the porch. She says you were wearing a navy blue sports coat that was too big for you.” 

“It was my dad’s-” LaRusso turns around, clutching the tin of coffee, expression somewhere in the neighborhood of disbelief. “I still have it.” 

“She, uh...” Dutch shakes his head, eyes landing on Johnny, asleep and safer to look at. “She wasn’t meant for any of us. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t important. Anyway you probably dodged a bullet there. Him too.” 

“Thanks, Dutch,” he says, smiling all sly, like he knows Dutch is already regretting all this sappy shit. 

Dutch retreats to the living room and sits in an armchair across from Johnny, still snoring, and waits for the coffee to brew. Maybe Johnny would want to hit the mat with him later. Or maybe he’d see if LaRusso wouldn’t mind him taking a crack at that broken transmission. Or maybe he’d just sit on the porch and watch the stupid fish all day. 

He could do about anything he wanted. 

He was free.

  
  
  
  
  


***

  
  
  



End file.
